Bilbo’s Door

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Mark

Gandalf scratches a queer sign” on Bilbo’s freshly painted door. After a bustling invasion of hooded dwarves, Bilbo is upset by “a hard rat-tat on the hobbit’s beautiful green door. Somebody was banging with a stick.” Gandalf, we are told, had left “quite a dent on the beautiful door.”

We too can become entangled in pettiness like Bilbo. It is easy to become more concerned with the door than the adventures that wait beyond it. But often God knows us better than we know ourselves and marks our door for adventure.

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Back to the Blood

Posted on January 20, 2015 by Mark

Because I am an English teacher, I have always cared about the words we use to communicate the gospel. I am sensitive to how language and even the connotations change. What were once fresh metaphors dry out and lose their power to make us see. And some language, like a lot of traditional evangelical language, doesn’t travel well outside of the religious community.

It is hard to know how to present Jesus in our culture. Apologetic proofs for God or various kinds of historical evidences for Christ are interesting, but seldom move unbelievers. We are so multicultural that many see religion not as an issue of truth, but rather of style. Movies, television, and literature has made it quite clear that Christian faith isn’t cool.

Postmodernist philosophy has hammered this generation with the idea that truth is relative, that everyone has their own truth, or that all truth is simply a social construct. The claim that Jesus is the way, the truth and life is meaningless to many and offensive to some. They ask, “What does Jesus offer that no other religion does?”

His blood.

Yes, I know; this is that religious language that seeker-friendly churches try to avoid. We do not want to frighten people with talk about being “washed in the blood of the Lamb” or plunging into a “fountain drawn from Immanuel’s veins”. Nonetheless, the best news we can proclaim to this generation is the power of Christ’s blood to make us clean.

This is a generation that is awash in filth. Kids are exposed to sexual impurity at an earlier age than any previous generation. The ease with which kids can now access pornography and the rancid stuff now accepted on television and in movies has created a culture of defilement. Many of my 18 and 19 year old students have gone through a half-dozen sexual relationships and are already nostalgic about the innocence of childhood.

The deep stain of sin, the piercing sense of uncleanness, and the longing for innocence all cry out for a Savior with the power to cleanse. Even more heartbreaking is the loss of hope among young people. In resignation many have let their sins define them; they expect nothing better than impurity from themselves or others. Yet, as much as they try to make themselves at home in the mud by refusing shame and embracing filthy language, the possibility of becoming clean, of having every sin washed away has a powerful appeal.
Yet in our admirable desire to be relevant and avoid religious-speak, we have become reluctant to speak of the blood. A good quality of this generation is its desire for reality; love that bleeds for us is real.

For a generation mired in impurity and exhausted by hedonism, it is good news that there is still power in the blood. For those entangled and smothered by impurity there is hope in Christ. It is never too late to get clean. No stain is too deep or habit too strong. Though our sins be as red as scarlet, they shall be a white as snow.

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Calling (Why I Write)

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Mark

When I was a boy, I didn’t always welcome the call to dinner, especially on long summer days when busy building tree houses in the sycamores or playing ball in the street. In the cold dusk of winter, I came more happily to my mother who stood under the porch light calling, “Mark, dinner.” After hours building snow forts or hurling snow balls at friends, the promise of a warm kitchen and hot food was irresistible.

My own boys are all grown and on their own, but Dallas has been with us a few weeks. When Teckla opened the stairway door and called him to dinner, I realized I missed the sound of her calling the boys. The call to dinner seems like the heart song of a home and a family.

But in a way, Christian parents never stop calling their kids to dinner. My mother is almost 93. At a prayer meeting this week, I listened to her praying and remembered the beauty of her voice when she called me to dinner on warm summer evenings. I realized that in her prayers, she was still calling me to a dinner—the wedding feast of the Lamb. Her example, generosity, and prayers have faithfully called all her children and grandchildren to that great Sunday dinner.

I too have never stopped calling. I have named my blog marksletters, but a better name would be dadsletters. The postings are really letters to my boys—just a way to keep calling them to dinner even though they have their own places. I hope my blogs somehow release some of the fragrance of Christ—the goodness of Jesus who is the Bread of Life.

Teckla and I in our prayers, love, and kindness, (even my blog) will always be calling our boys to dinner and to Jesus. We want no empty places or missing faces at God’s table. Instead of standing on the porch or yelling up the stairs, we call out to God and entrust the call to dinner to the Holy Spirit that always says, “Come!”

As much as I love hearing the call to dinner, these days I find the answer even sweeter: “Coming!”

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Blue Armpits

Posted on December 14, 2014 by Mark

Recently pictures of dyed armpit hair have sprouted on the internet. Although there might be more noble causes, a “Free Your Pits Manifesto” has accompanied the pictures. We have, it seems, a movement. Regarding women dyeing their unshaved pits, I have, however, no opinion. Yes, that makes me a bad blogger.

What I do find interesting is a line from the manifesto: “Whether you shave or not, women should be allowed to make decisions about their bodies without judgment from others.” Notice that the right requested is not the right to dye their pits, it is the right to do so without anyone judging their decision.

Although the issue itself may be trivial, the logic and rhetoric being used illustrates how easily demands for tolerance can lead to tyranny. The right to be free from judgment can mean three things:

1) freedom from people rudely shoving their judgments in our face

2) freedom from even hearing someone’s judgment

3) freedom from anyone even making a silent judgment

The first kind of freedom is just a freedom from rudeness. This would be nice for all folks—not just those with blue armpits. I’m not sure it needs a manifesto.

The second kind of freedom slides down the slope into censorship. Not only do I have the right to flash blue pits, I have the right to do so without anyone raising an eyebrow or voicing disapproval. If they dare judge my blue pits as ugly or unsightly, I can shame them into silence by calling them “intolerant”, “pit bigots”, or the “body-hair Gestapo.”

The third kind of freedom from judgment is truly scary and Orwellian. You are not even allowed to think a negative judgment. Approval is demanded. If you are silent, your silence may be interpreted as disapproval and judgment. This moves beyond the censorship of speech into censorship of thoughts—all in the name of tolerance.

Of course those seeking to be free of others’ judgments seldom mean it, for judgments can be either positive or negative. The goal is not, I think, to prevent people from judging their blue pits as beautiful. This judgment would be welcomed. To truly not judge others means to neither approve nor disapprove of how they look or behave. When we say someone is kind, attractive, or godly, we are making a judgment.

So this right isn’t about judgment, it is about the right to act without criticism. It is the demand that all dictators have made. It is cowardly in several ways. A courageous rebel weathers the disapproval of others, fights through the criticism leveled at them, and blazes her own path. Blue armpit hair may or may not win the battle for broad acceptance, but its champions have no right to skip the battle.

In many areas of controversy, especially those regarding sexual morality, our society has moved toward the third kind of freedom from judgment: the freedom to silence and slander those with whom we disagree. We really do need greater tolerance—tolerance for free and open debate.

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Black_phoebe_sayornis_nigricansA few Sundays ago I took a leisurely ride along the river on   the Old Broadbent Road. Near Catching Creek, I heard the pi-tsee, pi-tsee of a bird. Slowing to a near stop, I said to myself, “black phoebe” and looked around. There it was sitting on a bare branch, wagging its tail in typical flycatcher fashion. The late afternoon sun illuminated the black head and white body.

What’s surprising is that had you asked me what a black phoebe sounds like, I would have said, “I have no idea!” It is not a bird I grew up hearing. Only recently has it extended its range from northern California into Oregon. On walks around town and up to the cemetery, I have often watched them dart from branches to catch insects. Evidently, I have been listening to their call as well. But I have never tried to learn it.

And yet when I heard the call I immediately knew it was a black phoebe. As I continued my ride along the Coquille River, I reflected on how I really have no idea what God’s call sounds like either. To be honest, I ask God many questions and get no replies. I don’t hear his voice often, but I listen.

I have even annoyed people by objecting to the phrase “personal relationship with God.” Conversation with God seems essential to a personal relationship,  but God and I don’t converse. Yes, He has spoken volumes through His Word and in the revelation of His Son, but this seems more like a form letter sent to everyone than a conversation.

Recognizing the call of the black phoebe, however, greatly encouraged me. God told me that I know more than I know I know (if that makes sense). True, I can’t tell you what God’s voice sounds like, but I know it when I hear it.

Posted on November 10, 2014 by Mark | Leave a comment

The “From” and “To” of Freedom

Posted on October 20, 2014 by Mark

I have a love-hate relationship with the word freedom. I fully realized why only recently while teaching a short story called “Pain” by Carlos Fuentes. The main character of the story is a Mexican college student studying at Cornell University. Juan is bothered by the extreme sloppiness of other students. One in particular pushed him past his usual reserve:

One day, an athletic boy, blond, with pinched features, ordered a plate of spaghetti and began to eat it with his hands, by the fistful. Juan Zamora felt an uncontrollable revulsion that obliterated his appetite and forced him for the first and perhaps only time to criticize a fellow student. “That’s disgusting! Didn’t they teach you how to eat at home?” “Of course they did. My family’s pretty rich, for your information.” “So why do you eat like an animal?” “Because I am free,” said the blond through a mouthful of pasta.

Although I don’t particularly like most of the short story, this small scene struck me as a profound revelation of something that has gone wrong with America and with the concept of freedom.

It may be a terrible oversimplification, but it seems that to avoid being destructive and disgusting, freedom needs to get two prepositions right. First, we must rightly understand what we are free from. Second, we must rightly grasp what we are free to. It is essential that these parts of freedom are not separated. If we only celebrate what we are free from, we do whatever we want because we are free from the restraints of others. This sometimes happens to college freshmen who are freed from the oversight of parents but have no vision of what they are actually free to do.

The Quakers and pilgrims that came to America not only grasped that they were free from religious oppression and persecution, but that they were now free to worship. American soldiers coming back from WWII had seen the tyranny America was free from and had a keen sense of what they were now free to do. They were free to raise families, to start businesses, to get elected, and to build a nation. They got to it with great energy.

I have colleague who came to the United States from Ethiopia. After ten years and a Ph.D., he became a proud American citizen. He is still amazed, however, that more Americans don’t take advantage of all their freedoms and opportunities. In Ethiopia he sometimes had to wait in long lines to get a textbook. They were precious and costly. He observed that although financial aid pays for many students’ books, many students never open them. He doesn’t understand why. Of course, they are free not to—it is their right.

The rights language that pervades our society is mostly about freedom from stuff: from discrimination, from censorship, from moral judgment, from any restraint of our appetites. We disapprove of anyone who might tell us what we should do with our freedom. Increasingly the only “to” we attach to freedom is “to do whatever we want.”

Paul expresses the importance of the “from” and “to” of freedom in Galatians 5:1-13. Paul argues long and hard that Christ has freed us from the law: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” But twelve verses later Paul adds, “You are called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; but rather, serve one another in love.” In other words we are free from law to love.

The from and the to must go together, but in much of our culture they have become untethered. For many Americans, freedom has become what Fuentes observed: the freedom morally, artistically, and socially to eat spaghetti with our hands.

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Thief!

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Mark

Yesterday someone stole my red duffel bag while I was working out at the college’s weight room. Not much was in it except my big wad of school keys. It was hanging on a hook right by the entrance to the room, so the thief was brazen enough to take it right in front of people. Of course, the loss of my office and building keys is hugely inconvenient—and puts the college at some risk, but the loss I felt most keenly was something less tangible.

First, I felt this sour and sad feeling. The rec center was no longer a place to escape tension and the worries of the day. But the sourness radiated far beyond this place and incident. The whole world seemed—I know this is stupid—a little more rotten.

Two former students, who were on the rugby team and had been bench-pressing impressive weight, offered to beat-up the guy who took my bag. One was a former Marine and is now a bouncer at a local bar. It was a tempting offer, but I had no idea who the thief was. I filled out a police report at Campus Security and went back to my office. Replacing keys can take over a week, so I debated whether to lock-up my office or not. More sour feelings swirled as I thought about a thief having a key to my office. Undoing my sweaty workout, I grabbed a donut someone had left in the lobby and left my office unlocked.

As I drove home, I began thinking of what I had learned. “That’ll teach you to work out,” I told myself. “You should never trust people,” I thought. I also kicked myself for not watching who was coming in and out of the room. One of the terrible things about even small sins is that the victims often learn all the wrong lessons: bitterness, suspicion, fear, and anger. A single sin, like the first, brings into the world a poison that spreads far beyond the sin itself.

By the time I got home, I had calmed down and realized how much I hate sin. One little act of theft was poisoning how I saw the world. I hated the change in my heart. So I decided to reject the sourness; to have a militant joy, to turn the other cheek, to give the thief not just my bag but my sweaty socks too. I was grateful for the sharper hatred of sin, especially my own.

The Coos Bay police called and said they caught the guy who took my bag. They also recovered my keys. I may be asked to press charges, but I probably won’t. I hate sin—not him. I’ll drop the charges if he joins the rugby team.

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Poison Oak and Holiness

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Mark

100_1185   One of the things I like about fall around Myrtle Point is that the poison oak turns a deep and lustrous red. This makes it much easier to avoid. The rest of the year it is harder to see. But because I get it easily and “get it bad”, I have, over many years, learned to see it and avoid it in all seasons.

Poison oak comes in several forms. Sometimes it is a free-standing bush on a hillside, but it can also be a vine wrapped around the trunk of the tree. If, however, there isn’t much light getting to it, the poison oak can be a low shrub on the forest floor. In the spring it is a lush green color, but a little darker shade of green than most the other bushes. In winter its gray twigs will stand out as unusually smooth compared to other brambles.

Knowing where it is likely to grow (probable habitat) is as important as training the eye to see it. Birds eat the white berries of poison oak so the seeds are dropped wherever birds frequently perch—under telephone wires and fence lines. It is rare in deep forests, but huge twining vines of poison oak may have grown up with the second growth in an area that has been logged. Around here, you do not want to swing on the vines.
Because birds also eat blackberries and poop out the seeds, poison oak is often found in the berry patches. I have learned to look carefully for “leaves with a thumb” before reaching for a plump berry.

I have had some bad cases of poison oak. In great misery I sat through my hot and sweaty 8th grade graduation with poison oak on my face and legs. I once missed a couple weeks of school because my eyes had swollen shut from it. Home from college, I wandered, while wearing shorts, through some poison oak and ended up with crusty, running blisters covering both legs.

These experiences have motivated the expertise I now have in avoiding poison oak. But I also have fresher memories of my boys getting into it and have even had a relative go the hospital after roasting hot dogs on sticks cut from poison oak in the dark. The consequences of poison oak are ever before me.

Even so, it is nearly impossible to avoid all contact with it in this area if one gets out into the woods much. I, therefore, have developed disciplines that protect me. I wear long pants when in the woods, don’t touch my face, wipe sweat with a bandana, touch only the top of my hiking stick, and don’t grab bushes to help myself up a hill. I also take great care while urinating in the woods. Once I’m home, the dog is bathed and hiking clothes are carefully placed in the wash.

The result is that I seldom get poison oak and haven’t had a bad case for many years. However, lest I think I have developed some immunity to it, I did get a mild case a few years back while just watching. My neighbor across the street was taking out a poison oak infested hedge. From the edge of our driveway, I watched the brush hog chew up the hedge and turn it into chips. Evidently, the sap from the poison oak drifted on the wind because the next day my neck and face had small blisters.

My progress with poison oak parallels my progress with sin. I have had some bad cases and seen other bad ones that taught my heart to hate my sin. My maturing in holiness has had less to do with being zapped holy and more to do with learning to see and avoid sin. I have learned to avoid the places where I will encounter temptation. Through different seasons and cultural shifts (the Internet?) I have, with practice, learned to identify sin. My experience with poison oak helps me understand the definition of maturity in Hebrews 5:14: as those “who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”

I come from a Christian tradition that emphasized trips to the altar more than “practice” and training. Lectures on poison oak are not as helpful as long hikes with someone who has learned to identify it. I think the same is true regarding sin. I am sure that my boys tired of me pointing out poison oak on the hikes we took together, but I am convinced that learning to walk in holiness requires the labor intensive work of discipleship—long hikes together.

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On the Roof

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Mark

Recently I went somewhere I hadn’t been for a while: the roof of our house. I was painting the gables of our two story house—hanging onto a rope with one hand and painting with the other. While adjusting the ropes, I sat and looked out over the town and valley. The view filled me with a quiet joy as I looked at the cows in the valley and Douglas firs marching up the sides of the mountains.

Our family moved to this house when I was in the 7th grade. Then Myrtle Point was a thriving logging town with nearby mills running three shifts. Today the town’s story is more about unemployment, addiction, and hopelessness. Many of the broken and lost trudge up the hill and past our gate.

But from the roof, I looked over Myrtle Point and saw the beauty of the place God has called me to love. I blessed Myrtle Point and was blessed. We can, I think, easily fail to see the place we are. When we fail to see, we often fail to bless. Perhaps we need to climb onto the roof more often.

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Tarzan and Quicksand

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Mark

As a kid I loved the old Tarzan movies. A standard feature was someone thrashing around in quicksand. Sometimes this was a bad guy with a gun who had been chasing Tarzan: a scene which ended with his hat floating on the mire. Occasionally, however, it was someone deserving rescue. Tarzan would extend a long stick or throw out a vine and pull the person to solid ground. He never jumped in.

I suppose I should worry that many of my important life lessons come from old black and white television shows. But this lesson about quicksand is important—especially for young people who are fiercely loyal to their friends. It is also important for people who by nature are rescuers. Tarzan provides us with a model for how to rescue others without joining them in the quicksand.

One of the things I have greatly admired (occasionally lamented) about my sons is their loyalty to their friends. From what I have seen this is one of the virtues of their generation. My sons have taught me some good lessons on how to be a friend. And some of them really have a heart to rescue the abandoned and rejected. While blessing this loyalty, I have often encouraged them to stay out of the quicksand in which some of their friends are sinking.

Avoiding the quicksand is not easy. First, it is not easy to identify. In the movies the trail leads right into the bog which looks just like solid ground. Sometimes the quicksand was graced with beautiful water lilies. The smiling faces of those sinking in sin may not reveal the depression and shame sucking them under. Appearances are deceptive so rescuers must carefully stomp their way to the edge of the solid ground.

Unlike the movies, in real life those sinking in the quicksand are not always crying out to be rescued. The alcoholic or addict may be doing the backstroke in the quicksand and inviting others for a swim. And it would be judgmental to point out to a friend that they are sinking. In the spirit of tolerance, some say we should acknowledge that one person’s rock is another person’s quicksand. These voices of relativism can make us spectators as we watch our friends disappear into the muck. Of course, voices at the other end of the spectrum insist we should let these folks get out of quicksand on their own: not realizing that urging them to thrash around more only makes them sink faster.

What is most difficult is to resist the temptation to rush into the quicksand. The refusal to join them in their depression, anger, addiction, or irresponsibility can feel like betrayal. Sometimes those who are sinking will feel abandoned by the person who embraces hope instead of despair, does their homework instead of smoking weed, saves their money instead of buying the latest game, or lives for God instead of passing pleasures. Rescuers who themselves have been abandoned are especially vulnerable to the accusation that they are betraying their friends if they don’t join them in the quicksand. Misery does enjoy company, but keeping the sinking company isn’t real love.

We should admit that there is a kind of tragic comradeship among those who are sinking. This brotherhood of quicksand can generate some great songs and poetry. The water lilies on the quicksand are beautiful at eye level. But this seductive aesthetic of the tragic artist hides the stench of death and mud.

It stretches us to rescue the sinking. Tarzan often grabbed a tree with one arm and with other extended a long branch: all the while keeping his feet on solid ground. We too must get our feet on solid ground before rescuing others. It easier to lift those out of poverty when we aren’t in it. It is easier to lift those out of despair when we have hope. When our hand is held by God, we can safely extend a hand to others.

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